Your Love is Breaking My Heart
by raes
Summary: He is tired of being her other guy. He wants to be more then her good time, but her love is breaking his heart. Mark's perspective. Mark/Addison. AU; Addison never left.


_Disclaimer: All characters, events, settings and situations mentioned in this work are sole property of their respective owners. As this work is an interpretation of the original material and not for profit, in constitutes fair use._

_He is tired of being her other guy. He wants to be more then her good time. But her love is breaking his heart._

_**Your Love is Breaking My Heart  
1/?**_

The loud burst of laughter from the other side of the cafeteria caused his eyes to abruptly move from sports section of that day's _Times_. Her head thrown back, long red tresses shining, shimmering and bouncing from the sudden movement and genuine laughter bubbling out of her caused an acutely painful pressure within him – like someone was crushing his diaphragm. It was moments like these, where he wasn't prepared to see _her_. Not the person she was in the hospital, or at dinner parties, or the person she adopted to function in day-to-day activities, but rather the _her_ that caused him to love, really truly love, for the first time in his life. Sitting across from Callie Torres was the woman who was killing him slowly.

She was only present in flashes these days, and that alone was almost as painful as the charade she had taken up in the name of God only knows the reason. Looking back on that night he can only scoff. He knew deep within himself that he was a damned fool if he thought he could pull this off, he blamed her for this – this level of emoting, even if only to himself and never out loud, was fucking pathetic. She has turned him into a fucking girl using words like _love_, and spending otherwise useful time (sex, drinking, sex, surgery, sex, surgery) wishing for days gone by. Gross.

She may have started off an object of sexual desire, a slight source of discontent in what was an otherwise ideal brotherhood, an exhilarating source of academic challenge, a conundrum dressed in designer couture, chain smoking and taking shots of cheap liquor in the cellar of her uncle's house the eve of her cousin's debutante ball but somewhere in the almost twenty years he had known her she had become so so much more.

_The obnoxious beeping of the alarm clock finally drove him out from under the covers. There was a miniscule sliver of sunlight peeking in from the slight opening between the black sheets he had tacked up, in front of the solitary window, to serve as pseudo-curtains. Sitting up, he pushed the rumbled forest green sheets down to his waist, looking around the room he didn't initially catch sight of any red block numbers. Huffing in annoyance he slowly fumbled his way out of bed searching for the clock his best friend and wife bought him for Christmas this year after he showed up late for three shifts in a row. Listening carefully he walked over to the arm chair in the corner of the room and swept the pile of laundry to the floor in one quick movement, unearthing the clock and quickly turning it off. _

_Knowing now that he had gotten out of bed he would be up for the rest of the day he ran his hand over the top of his head to quell any remnants of bed hair and shuffled to the en suite bathroom to brush his teeth. Running the bristles of the brush under some water and quickly squirting some paste on it he shoved it into the corner of his mouth and started for the front door to retrieve the newspaper. Unchaining and unlocking the door with his left hand he continued to half-heartedly run the tooth brush across his teeth with the right. Distractedly pushing open the door he stepped out onto the porch of his townhouse and stopped. Sitting with her back pressed against the left railing of the stairs with her long legs stretched out in front her was Addison Montgomery-Shepherd. Her eyes were closed and upon closer inspection he found some light smudges of mascara underneath that she had missed. She was dressed in a knee-length yellow sundress and has listening to her ipod. Smirking around the messy tooth brush in his mouth he lightly kicked his right foot out catching her in the upper thigh. Startled her head her eyes snapped open. _

"_Mark! You scared me." She exclaimed while reaching up to pluck the ear buds of her ipod out. She began to stand up while simultaneously reaching down and grabbing his paper from the step below her. All the while he stood there brows crinkled in confusion, tooth paste foam unattractively dripping from the left corner of his mouth. _

_Now standing at her full height she looked him in the eye. Words began to tumble rapidly from her mouth, overlapping in their haste, signaling the extent of her flustered state. Fumbling nervously with the paper and reaching up to push some hair out of her eyes she continued on completely unaware that he had not comprehended a word she had uttered since she stood up and revealed that the threadbare yellow dress she was wearing became almost completely sheer when it was against the back drop of the late morning sun. What did finally catch his attention was the cloud of sadness in her eyes, mostly likely the culprit of the mascara smudges. The burning sensation inside his mouth from the still present tooth paste foam was what finally jolted him back into competency._

"…_is it okay if I stay for a while? He is out of town for the week…I guess he forgot to tell me. The Chief said it was arranged a few months ago…and well…" She trailed off sadly and forced a smile. Shaking herself mentally and physically she lurched forward and placed a kiss high on his right cheek bone as she stepped around him to get inside announcing she would put coffee on while he finished "prettying himself up."_

A touch on his shoulder snapped him back into the present. Looking up and to his right he found Addison peering down at him quizzically.

"Daydreaming?" She asked, smirking playfully.

He stared back silently in response. _Yes._

Forcing a grunt he threw the paper down on the table. "No, just rethinking my fantasy football strategy for this season," he quickly shifted his eyes back to the table top.

Ruffling his hair she placed an open blueberry yogurt on the table in front of him, plastic spoon sticking out of a nearly full container. "I decided I wasn't craving this after all, you can have it." She turned to leave calling a quick, "See ya," over her shoulder.

She had stayed with him that entire week Derek had been out of town. The marriage had started to deteriorate by this time. They were almost ten years into it and even a guy like Mark could see the strain. More often then not those last few months it had been Mark and Addison instead of Derek and Addison and Mark, but that was the first time she had willingly sought him out. Usually Derek sent Mark to Addison's side to help ease the sting of a rescheduled dinner or Mark offering himself up to fill the empty seat across from her at whatever restaurant she had managed to secure an elusive reservation at. She was tired of being alone all the time. That week was when Mark first realized he was in deep shit. That was the week he fell in love with Addison Montgomery Shepherd.

Nothing untoward happened that week or for almost a year afterward. They watched movies together. She bought him real curtains and found the remote for the television, which meant he could watch ESPN _and _ESPN 2. He berated her taste in music and was able to get the cap of her favorite nail polish so she could use it for the first time in months. She told him he was her best friend and she loved him for putting up with her. He shrugged, forced a smile, and then declared "gin."

Mark realized as he sat there, twirling the plastic spoon around in blueberry yogurt, that somehow he had managed to come full circle. He was fucked and not in the way he preferred. Shaking his head in self disgust he reached for the vibrating phone in the pocket of his lab coat.

_Hey. Thai tonight? Chris just canceled,_ he sucked in a painful breath of air and shoved himself away from the table. Throwing the yogurt into the trash with more force than necessary he typed his reply and flipped the phone shut and pushed back into the recesses of his pocket.

_Sure._


End file.
